Moving on from Myles Turner

Seven-foot Myles Turner made his long-awaited announcement today of where he will play college basketball next season.

The Texas big man, the last available five-star recruit in the class of 2014, chose the home-state Longhorns from a list of seven finalists that also included Ohio State -- but not really.

Turner had final in-home visits last week with five coaches, and the Buckeyes’ Thad Matta was not among them. Turner’s father, David Turner, told SNY.tv that Ohio State and SMU did not ask to visit.

Clearly, Matta knew it would be a waste of his time, as the word around Turner for months has been that he wants to play closer to home, and ideally in the Big 12. The other schools whose coaches visited him last week were Texas A&M, Oklahoma State and Duke.

Ohio State, which has one open scholarship remaining for next season, has been viewed as a longshot to land Turner since he tried to back out of a scheduled official visit to campus last fall. His mother told ESPN.com in early September that her son planned to visit Columbus the weekend of Oct.18-20, but a month later, Turner told Scout.com that he would be at Duke, Kentucky or Oklahoma State that weekend. Not long after that, Turner’s father told SNY.tv that the Buckeyes indeed would get the visit because “they were the first to invite on that date.”

Turner dutifully visited that weekend with 6-10 Payton Dastrup of Mesa, Ariz., who subsequently committed to the Buckeyes before flipping to Brigham Young less than a week later.

Matta is expected to bank the remaining 2014 scholarship, meaning the Buckeyes’ recruiting class for next season is complete and includes not only four incoming freshmen -- guard D’Angelo Russell, wings Keita Bates-Diop and Jae’Sean Tate and center Dave Bell -- but also two front-court transfers in Temple senior Anthony Lee Virginia Tech freshman Trevor Thompson.

Lee, as a graduate transfer, will be eligible immediately. Ohio State is expected to petition the NCAA for Thompson to play next season, but he may have to sit out a year before he is eligible to play the three he has left.

Meanwhile, Matta and his staff have been busy lately scouting players in the classes of 2015 and beyond. They have two committed for 2015, point guard A.J. Harris of Dayton and forward Mickey Mitchell of Plano, Texas, but Mitchell’s status is iffy.

His older brother, Mike, redshirted as a freshman linebacker at Ohio State last fall but decided in January to transfer after completing the spring semester. Mickey committed to Ohio State while spending a week in Columbus with Mike last August. Some envision him rescinding that commitment after Mike leaves Columbus this week.

Whatever happens, the search goes on. Matta and staff were out in force last weekend, the only weekend this spring they could scout AAU tournaments, the most significant of which were in Sacramento, Calif., Dallas, Pittsburgh and Akron.

Some of the prospects they watched in hopes of landing two or more (depending on what Mitchell does) for the class of 2015, with an emphasis on further bolstering the frontcourt: